The spin you quoted tries to suggest otherwise but insiders that have played with it state it IS NOT a Win7 remake (Win 7 is repackaged Vista) but rather a all new OS and indeed focuses on a Tablet and not desktop.

Windows 8 is not an all new OS, it's another MinWin instantiation, a descendant of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. See Windows 8 Server Developer Preview, for example. Do you seriously think that Microsoft could have created an "all new OS", endowed it will all of its predecessors' functionality, and gotten it running only a few years after launching Window 7?

It is a new OS. MS has a pattern for many years now to make a new OS then tweak it with a new release and then start over. Win2000 was new, XP was a tweak of 2000. Vista was a new direction, Win7 was a tweak. Win8 is a new direction again. Sure it will run on a desktop top but MS realizes that laptops (and maybe Desktops) could be on life support in a few years or so as Tablets evolve so Win8's primary focus is on Tablet not desktop as the new frontier.

« Last Edit: September 23, 2011, 11:24:50 AM by W8JX »

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--------------------------------------Ham since 1969.... Old School 20wpm REAL Extra Class..

It is a new OS. MS has a pattern for many years now to make a new OS then tweak it with a new release and then start over. Win2000 was new, XP was a tweak of 2000. Vista was a new direction, Win7 was a tweak. Win8 is a new direction again.

Let's see, Win95... basically the divorce from IBM and OS/2 (just when OS/2 4.0 Warp was getting really good).Win 2000... Not one of their best productsXP... Using it on this computer with no plans on upgradingVista... In another time and another places there would be people "under the sword" for that one.Windows7... Decent, definitely not Vista

MS seems to do one right, then wrong, then right, then wrong. I will wait for MS9 or just migrate completely over to whatever version of Android is running at that time (with the desert naming scheme it will probably be "RumCake").

It is a new OS. MS has a pattern for many years now to make a new OS then tweak it with a new release and then start over. Win2000 was new, XP was a tweak of 2000. Vista was a new direction, Win7 was a tweak. Win8 is a new direction again.

Let's see, Win95... basically the divorce from IBM and OS/2 (just when OS/2 4.0 Warp was getting really good).Win 2000... Not one of their best productsXP... Using it on this computer with no plans on upgradingVista... In another time and another places there would be people "under the sword" for that one.Windows7... Decent, definitely not Vista

MS seems to do one right, then wrong, then right, then wrong. I will wait for MS9 or just migrate completely over to whatever version of Android is running at that time (with the desert naming scheme it will probably be "RumCake").

Every since they produced vista I went the way of Linux and Mac. You thought that MS would have learned from that abomination that they produced 10 years ago called me. Apparently not. No more ms products in my home. In fact I the only windows in my house are the ones that keep the cold weather out. Hi Hi!!! I have 4 Macs & 4 Linux boxes including our IRLP node. I love it. I have not seen anywhere, where I couldn't do anything that I wanted to do with the systems that I have. No more windoze in our home.

Actually the IBM split was sooner. They split long before Warp OS/2 3.x. The split was mostly over protected mode. IBM was stuck on optimizing OS/2 for a 286 class system and MS wanted to move forward to 32 bit support. (though it took a while to get there main stream) MS left and IBM pressed on with OS2 1.x. Shortly after split IBM still had right to Windows code and included it with OS2 2.x to run in a VM. I actually used OS2 for may years and did not move fully to Windows until late in NT4 and then Win2000. Win2000 was a very solid OS and not bloated and hard on resources. Bloat has grown since.

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--------------------------------------Ham since 1969.... Old School 20wpm REAL Extra Class..

Where's the (yuck) after Windows Me? It's at least as deserving as Vista.

ME was quirky at best but there was nothing fundamentally wrong with Vista. It was simply ahead of the hardware when it rolled out. (lack of memory first and fore most and CPU power) There was also, thanks of Dell, a lot of computers that flooded market that were not fully Vista complaint at chip set level. This all gave Vista a bad name. If 32 bit was run with at least 2.5gig of memory and a decent CPU and good chipset it was very solid. My daughter have two dual core Vista 32 bit machines with 2.5g and in over three years no reloads or major crashes and they played a lot of games and serious office apps too. I have a 64 bit Vista machine with 8 gig of memory, It is close to 4 years old and rock solid. One reason Win 7 is doing so well is hardware has evolved too and was ready this time. It took a while for XP to mature through hardware and code too.

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--------------------------------------Ham since 1969.... Old School 20wpm REAL Extra Class..

ME was quirky at best but there was nothing fundamentally wrong with Vista.

Vista's implementation of UAC was far too user-hostile. One of the engineers on the Vista team described their attitude to me as: "so you want an OS with real security, eh?" They purposely put the security mechanism in the user's face.

ME was quirky at best but there was nothing fundamentally wrong with Vista.

Vista's implementation of UAC was far too user-hostile. One of the engineers on the Vista team described their attitude to me as: "so you want an OS with real security, eh?" They purposely put the security mechanism in the user's face.

If Vista had been launched with more strict hardware and memory requirements it would of had a different launch. Ideally MS should have waited another 6 to 9 month to launch it at very least because hardware was not ready. There was Vista Compatible and Vista Compliant. Compatible meant it should run but there could/would be issues. Compliant meant hardware/chipset was fully supporting Vista. Dell rushed to jump gun and flooded market with "compatible" systems hoping to get a leg up. Others like HP waited for compliant chip sets. Between Dell jumping gun with improper hardware and too low a memory requirement at launch, Vista got a bad rap. Since they started shipping Vista machines with service pack one, pretty much everyone had proper chipset and Vista had been tweaked too. (Even Win7 was helped a lot with service pack 1)

Even today when you buy a new Dell, while hardware may be new, usually it is several months behind power curve and not on cutting edge on motherboards and chipsets because it is cheaper to build that way and average consumer does not know any better.

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--------------------------------------Ham since 1969.... Old School 20wpm REAL Extra Class..

"Windows 8 is not an all new OS, it's another MinWin instantiation, a descendant of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. See Windows 8 Server Developer Preview, for example. Do you seriously think that Microsoft could have created an "all new OS", endowed it will all of its predecessors' functionality, and gotten it running only a few years after launching Window 7?"

AA6YQ, Hasn't SkyNet become self aware yet? lol...Developing a new software system doesn't seem so daunting when the engineers can simply assign most of the designing tasks to the very machines that will use the new software. Manpower and time will be reduced exponentially.....

Do you seriously think that Microsoft could have created an "all new OS", endowed it will all of its predecessors' functionality, and gotten it running only a few years after launching Window 7?"

MS does a major upgrade change every two releases. Win2000 major, Win XP minor tweak, Vista major, Win 7minor tweak. Win 8 will be a major change. No friggin way you are going to get Windows to run on a tablet well without major major changes and MS is going to push it as a tablet OS.

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--------------------------------------Ham since 1969.... Old School 20wpm REAL Extra Class..

...Developing a new software system doesn't seem so daunting when the engineers can simply assign most of the designing tasks to the very machines that will use the new software.

There are applications that can implement software from well-defined specifications, e.g. parser generators and model-driven code generators. There are applications that can critique a design, e.g. model checkers that assess modularity or identify opportunities for refactoring. There are applications that can generate executable code that implements "behavior" specified in the form of a state transition diagram. But even in combination, these capabilities do not perform design. Ongoing work in genetic algorithms may someday yield an application that given an initial design and a comprehensive set of tests yields a design that is improved in some specified set of dimensions -- like performance or resource consumption -- and still passes the test set; until there's a way to reliably transform specifications into to comprehensive test set, however, such an application would not be broadly useful.

Ray Kurzweil argues that since our rate of progress is increasing exponentially, problems like the above will be solved more rapidly then our intuition would indicate. We'll see...

Do you seriously think that Microsoft could have created an "all new OS", endowed it will all of its predecessors' functionality, and gotten it running only a few years after launching Window 7?"

MS does a major upgrade change every two releases. Win2000 major, Win XP minor tweak, Vista major, Win 7minor tweak. Win 8 will be a major change. No friggin way you are going to get Windows to run on a tablet well without major major changes and MS is going to push it as a tablet OS.

Oh, I see. Since you don't understand how Microsoft could use MinWin to enable Windows 8 to target tablets, you conclude that they must have started from scratch.

Ignorance is rarely a reliable foundation on which to base conclusions.

Read up on IBM's Watson being able to play Jeopardy and win. It took them a few years of additional programing to get to to win. It had trouble with logic for correct choice and understanding questions but they whipped it but it still does not "think"

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--------------------------------------Ham since 1969.... Old School 20wpm REAL Extra Class..

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